American Cousins
Synopsis
Two American Mafiosi, Gino and Settimo, take refuge in the Glasgow café owned by their Scots/Italian cousin. But cousin Roberto isn't the tough guy they'd expected. His strengths are fish frying and stamp collecting, and he thinks Magnum 45s are a type of ice cream.
Gino and Settimo try to repay Roberto's hospitality by chasing off a debt collector who wants his property, but their strong-arm tactics alarm him, and he realises they aren't the PR consultants they claimed to be.
Adding to the tension is a growing rivalry between Roberto and Gino over Alice, a girl Roberto has secretly loved for years. Matters come to a head when Roberto finds a suitcase full of plants, which he assumes to be drugs. He's disgusted with his cousins, until Settimo reveals that the cuttings are from a new species of vine, which can grow anywhere and is set to revolutionise the wine industry.
Meanwhile, Roberto has finally worked up the courage to tell Alice how he feels. But before he can act his world starts to fall apart. Firstly he finds her in a passionate embrace with Gino, then his beloved Grandfather dies, and finally the Ukrainian gangsters track down the Americans and lay siege to the shop. The situation seems hopeless until Roberto comes up with a place of safety then sets fire to the shop. Within minutes the emergency services have arrived and the Ukrainians have made a hasty retreat.
The next day, as smoke rises from the ruins of his precious café, Roberto tells Alice he loves her. She says she loves him too, and that the kiss with Gino had been a drunken mistake. But their happiness is short lived. The debt-collector who the Americans have chased off returns mob-handed, and he's out for revenge.
Roberto stands up to him and is bundled into a car, but just at that moment a fleet of taxis pulls up. They contain the cream of Gino and Settimo's New Jersey family, who have decamped to Scotland to avoid being wiped out in a gangland war. The sight of 30 steely-eyed Mafiosi soon convinces the debt collector to make himself scarce.
Five years later the ruins of Roberto's café have been transformed into a magnificent new restaurant. Next door the Americans have built an impressive warehouse from which they run the Caledonian Chianti Company. And the wasteland in front of the shop has become a beautiful vineyard, with rows of plants as far as the eye can see.
Details
- Year
- 2003
- Type of film
- Features
- Running Time
- 97 mins
- Format
- 35mm, Fuji
- Director
- Donald Coutts 1st Feature
- Producer
- Robert Bevan, Keith Hayley, Charlie Savill, Amanda Coombes, Amit Barooah
- Editor
- Lindy Cameron
- Screenwriter
- Sergio Casci
- Director of Photography
- Jerry Kelly
- Sound
- Martin Belshaw
- Music
- Donald Shaw
- Principal Cast
- Danny Nucci, Shirley Henderson, Gerald Lepkowski, Vincent Pastore, Dan Hedaya
Production status
Complete
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Last updated 17th June 2010
